With our upcoming cross-country adventure looming, the Beloved and I decided to celebrate our own Christmas a little early this weekend. On Saturday, we stayed in our jammies, opened our stockings and exchanged gifts. Penny got her first stocking and was excited to find a couple of new toys and a few treats.
We said no tv or computer and we stayed in, lit the fireplace, listened to Christmas music and read. The weather cooperated for such a day by providing a much too rare all-day rain. Pretty much a perfect day.
The Christmas feast this year was a Bobby Flay recipe that we’d decided on – a veritable mouthful: Pan Seared Duck with Red Chile Pear Sauce, Bourbon-Brown Sugar-Asian Pear Relish and Potato-Blue Cheese Cakes. We had it with an excellent Novy Family Syrah.
This week is busy with a lot of prep and packing. I did stop by AAA today while I was out and scored this important travel aide:
We hit the road in THREE DAYS!
My Vox neighbour, Endeesea, has come up with a cracker of a post about the main impediment to much human progress. It's humans.
" The purpose of commercial [media] is to induce mass sales. For mass sales there must be a mass norm ... By suppressing the individual, the unique, the industry ... assures itself a standard product for mass consumption.":
John Whiting, writer, commenting on the homogenization of corporate media program content
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"One of the intentions of corporate-controlled media is to instill in people a
sense of disempowerment, of immobilization and paralysis. Its outcome is to turn
you into good consumers. It is to keep people isolated, to feel that there is no
possibility for social change.": David Barsamian, journalist
and publisher
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The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they
hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which
they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as
little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defence correspondents in the
establishment sheets serve as the spittoons.: E.P. Thompson,
British historian
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The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the
capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all
the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters;
to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their
patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the
profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is
war in a nutshell: Eugene Debs 6 June 1918: The speech was
given to about 1,200 people and was later used against Debs to make the case
that he had violated the espionage Act. The judge sentenced Debs to ten years in
prison:
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"[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants,
brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;
your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious
parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and
hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of
savages." : Frederick Douglass - 1818 - 1895
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" When everyone is thinking the same, no one is thinking.": John Wooden
Hi peeps,
I've had to corral commenting on my content behind a neighborhood-only wall. I've been getting too many spammers posting Viagra advertisements in my comments.
Cheers,
Tim
I'm wondering - anybody know of a way to export all my VOX blog content into files that can be imported by wordpress?
Thanks!
Did you know you can buy Alfa Romeo at 3 million JPY? (About 30K USD)? They have a kind of "entry model" nowadays. Actually, I saw a BMW advert with a model in the same price range. It surely is a lot of money, but compared to the price rage their cars usually are in, these models are pretty affordable- Japanese car makers make more expensive vehicles.
Except for its good-but-not-great ending, "Up In The Air" is an excellent film. The acting was outstanding, especially George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Overall, I would rate this movie as an A-. The plot is basic: termination consultant Ryan Bingham (Clooney) enjoys his life as a road warrior sent to fire employees when the bosses of these companies don't have the courage to do the work themselves. Along the way, Ryan meets a kindred spirit in fellow traveler Alex (Farmiga), who he picks up in a bar, and gets a protege in new, hotshot employee Natalie (Kendrick). Ryan also does work as a motivational speaker, where he espouses his views on relationships (which he does not have and thinks get in the way of people being successful). His sister is getting married, and Ryan tries to avoid even his own family. The biggest source of joy in his life are the perks that come with his frequent travels: elite status with the travel companies whose services he uses constantly. It's enjoyable to watch Ryan evolve through his relationships with Natalie and Alex. Ryan's journey is interesting, and Clooney does a great job in
portraying his transformation, even if it isn't as extreme as one might
think. What's great about this movie is that even though it covers a dark
subject (firing people), it uses humor well in "softening" the blow. Director Jason Reitman improves upon his other dark, corporate comedy "Thank You For Smoking". His debut film was similar in plot and tone, but this film is better. This is an enjoyable film and more than lives up to the hype about it.
Clean coal plan gets fast track
- From: The Australian
- December 14, 2009
A MAJOR clean coal power plant and
carbon storage project is being considered for planning approval in
Queensland, even though a feasibility assessment has not been completed
and a site is yet to be found, along with the necessary $4.2 billion in
funding.
The Bligh government confirmed on Friday that Co-ordinator-General Colin Jensen had given significant project status to ZeroGen, which is wholly owned by the state with initial backing from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Shell and the coal industry.
The declaration signals the start of comprehensive environmental assessments, even though the project is still at the pre-feasibility stage.
Most stakeholders are awaiting carbon policies to determine the way forward.
A feasibility study, if warranted, would not be completed for almost two years.
But ZeroGen has considerable political support.
The Bligh government declared ZeroGen capable of being one of the first companies in the world to build a commercial-scale power plant -- generating the equivalent of 400 megawatts -- combined with geosequestration technology.
Queensland Mines and Energy Minister Stephen Robertson said the Bligh government was showing its commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
"Integrating a coal gasification power plant with the capture and storage of (carbon dioxide) emissions to generate low-emission electricity for the national electricity market will put Queensland in the driver's seat when it comes to clean coal technology," Mr Robertson said.
The Rudd government last week announced ZeroGen was one of four projects for its $2bn carbon capture and storage flagships program.
But even if successful, ZeroGen would only share in $120 million in commonwealth funding for pre-feasibility work, and the proponents are operating on tight timeframes in their bid to have the power plant running by late 2015.
ZeroGen chief executive Tony Tarr said last week the project would help to safeguard Queensland's coal industry while putting the state at the forefront of technological development.
"It is widely understood that if several large-scale integrated CCS (carbon capture and storage) projects are not developed within the next decade, there is a real possibility we won't be able to deploy the technology in time to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from exceeding reasonable limits," Dr Tarr said.
Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said the commonwealth government was, through its CCS flagships program, contributing to the G8 goal of at least 20 large-scale integrated CCS projects globally by 2020.
Drilling tests have continued in central Queensland's Northern Denison Trough in an effort to find a location for about 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to be stored over the life of the project.
The project was greatly revamped early last year, when its proponents succumbed to pressure to double ZeroGen's planned electricity output and fast-track development of a commercially viable plant.
